Trolls

[SilverOldie2]

This is sort of about another thread, but not a specific one. AIBU to say that I simply cannot understand what people get out of coming on here and starting a thread which pulls on people's heartstrings when it is completely false. I've seen posters opening their souls on some threads where they are concerned for the OP and can't imagine how devastated they must feel when they discover that it was all a fake.

I'm not talking about those who post something so outrageous or funny, you sort of know it's not true and can have fun with it

Can there be any acceptable reason why they do it? Have you ever trolled and if so why? What the hell do they get out of it? I just do not understand.

That's terrible about Nobbly, I followed her thread, poor woman. I think there are some threads which start out with at least a grain of truth/reality and then become increasingly ridiculous- in no small part because hordes of people start demanding updates. I think the liftzilla thread was an example of that.
Does anyone remember the thread about the 'condemned cakes?'. That was a genius piece of trolling which didn't hurt anyone.

Seeing as the deletion message confirmed her as a PBP, I got sucked in by someone who keeps namechanging, starting seemingly innocuous threads then either drop feeding or starting new ones. It's so weird because she gives the same identifiying info (teacher, new baby, returning to work, abusive DH) despite the NCing.

I really don't know what the motivation behind them is. I was pissed off I was sucked in and it was only bloody style and beauty advice I was trying to help with (fuck knows why, not my specialist subject ) so can't imagine how I would feel on a bereavement trolling thread.

The troll I unmasked on another forum was 100% a troll, I will share how I found out because their systems were different to here...

We had a policy of only allowing one account per user, so we had a page which flagged up duplicate accounts on the same IP address. It wasn't totally reliable because we did have e.g. couples who were on the same site, or people at the same college or living in the same house, etc, but we did keep an eye. But when these two users were flagged it set an alarm bell ringing for me, and because I was a newly appointed moderator I was being particularly diligent. But the first user (we'll call her m) was a long-term, well-known user who had herself previously been a moderator, so the idea that she could have more than one persona was ludicrous.

Anyway I kept an eye, and then the second user (we'll call her k) announced that she was going into hospital for brain surgery. At this point she joined twitter published her details online etc so I followed her. Her account went quiet but her twitter account stayed active, and in time she went in for surgery, and a couple of days later a tweet came through from someone claiming to be her sister saying she was in a coma but that people could keep tweeting as she was going to read her tweets to her knowing how much enjoyment she gets from them. At this point I would have been suspicious even if I hadn't seen the duplicate log-in on the site.

After a few days K came out of her coma and was back on the site, posting from hospital, or so she said. Except I kept an eye on her log in's, and they changed from a company IP address to a residential one in the evenings. At this point I was 99% sure that M and K were the same person and that K's story was bullshit, but I had one way to check...

The site also had a phone system, where you could dial into a server and have actual conversations with people if you wanted. It was all fairly innocent, like a voice chat room but done over the phone. If you didn't withhold your number then it would be logged on our system, and like the IP address, would appear against usernames. M didn't know this because the phone system had been implemented after she had been a moderator. So I went on to the phone system page and found m's number, and when I clicked on it all users who had called in from that number. There was m, and k, and two other users, one of whose death had been announced by M about a year previously. It was a mobile phone number, so there was no way that they all used that number, given they all claimed to come from different parts of the country.

At that point I then brought up the IP's for the other two users and did a comparison to see how many times they clashed. They did - many times. At that point I banned all four accounts. M sent me an email asking if I could spare K because she was so reliant on the site, but I wrote back saying no, and that she knew why.

After that one of the other mods sent me an email saying that M had been flagged up the year before when the other user had died, but because she had been a moderator they had let it go because she'd said that the family had requested to see her account as it was a suicide.

K remained active on twitter for a good while after that. She had numerous other surgeries, gained a partner, a twin sister, etc etc. I would have a quick look every few weeks or so to see if she'd died yet. And then, one new year's day, she killed herself. I didn't actually see that bit, just a few weeks later all the condolence tweets addressed to her etc etc.

It is bloody sickening. And the worst of it is that I know m's real name, I know where she lives, where she works, and I know people who know her in RL. I have told many people but somehow I think they don't always believe it's possible. I have blocked her on all social media (she moves in some of the same circles I do) and I will never engage with her personally. She knows I know, and she has been confronted by others who I have told. But I know she tried to join the same site several times after that, so I'm guessing that she is still trolling somewhere. Here even perhaps.

bloody hell

How odd.

The worst one I encountered was a girl claiming to be abused by her father. Started out typical and sympathetic enough.

Then spiraled into:

• Her father beat her to make her train
• She had to train for an ultimate fighting tournament where people were known to die
• Oh and she lived in Australia, and knew the seedy underground where they make teens fight I guess.
• She fought there.
• Got beat into a coma (which I was impressed with, I was expecting a championship win), where her uncle kept us updated
• 3 days later she woke up, fine and dandy. Went back to posting as usual about training for another upcoming fight.

The entire time she was going to go to this fight she had a group of people riled up about not wanting her to go, and to report her father. I don't think I was a mod, but was a personal friend with the owner (back when personal php boards were a thing, and before twitter existed). We didn't do the IP check, because he got emails from "her uncle". I called bullshit from the start, but he wanted to believe her and was concerned. Until she woke up, and didn't need physical therapy, tests, or follow up appointments.

We speculated on whether she was being abused and just embellishing to boost her self esteem, or if it was all made up. We just sort of humored her the same way you would a child making up stories in case the board was her only lifeline. Then she just started fading from the boards. Strange girl.

OMG wannaBe that is terrible. Fantastic detective work by you and what a shame she couldn't be publicly outed and shamed.

Trolling is strange but I admit to doing it as a teenager.

I was 13 or 14 and a member of a message board for fans of a TV show. I was on the board a lot, as well as discussing the show there were threads about lots of other subjects and I started to feel I'd become friends with the other regular posters.

I posted for support about a genuine bedwetting problem I had, I had nobody to talk to about it in real life, parents were unsupportive and I felt convinced if any of my real life friends found out they would tell everyone at school and I would lose them.

Everyone was completely kind and supportive and helpful on the board. I think I was completely overwhelmed by their kindness and wanted it to continue. So then I started embellishing the story, made up that someone had found out at school and I was being bullied. Cue lots more kind, sympathetic posts making me feel better about something I hated about myself.

But it wasn't enough, the craving for more sympathy was addictive. I made up a new user on the site and started posting bullying posts to myself in my own threads. Cue lots of people defending me and more sympathy. However I didn't know about IP addresses but a more internet-savvy poster did. He pointed out the IP-addresses of me and the bully were the same so I was found out and banned from the site.

Completely deserved but the trolling did start from a genuine post and I never set out to troll. It's just I became addicted to the kind responses, something I had a defect of in real life, so had to make up things to keep posting about to keep them coming.

I often see threads on MN where I think the same thing has happened. Some threads start off rather mundane but become more and more outlandish as they go on. I wonder if some OPs are so keen to keep the thread and the responses going that they start embellishing the truth or making up new twists and turns to the story to keep people posting. I doubt they set out to troll but the temptation to keep people reading becomes too much.

On another forum I'm on there was a hugely prolific poster who people seemed to like. She was 'royalty' on there and set the tone for a lot of the boards. She had drama after drama after drama and garnered huge sympathy.

Lots of people seemed to know her IRL.

Turned out that she'd been shit stirring, had sent emails to various other prolific posters telling them others had been slagging them off. Everyone thought everyone else knew her IRL, when it turned out that no-one actually knew her. Her whole dramatic life was outed as being a figment of her fucked up imagination. She was banned.

However, she's reinvented herself as a very successful blogger, has thousands of Twitter followers and has been on TV as an expert in her field. God knows how much of her new persona is bullshit too. Most of it probably. She seems to convince people she's genuine.

I am convinced she's on here now. Some threads I read just absolutely reek of her. Especially the grief ones.

bingandflop I think we're talking about the same person.

Tracey really? That just made my heart sink can u pm me what forum it was?

traceybarlow was that the poster with the really hair raising birth story?

Wow traceybarlow, any chance of a PM who this person is?

I see that Mrs DeVere has started a thread about the "grief thief" that inspired this one.

bingandflop the forum initials are DW. She also had a fake FB profile and in a previous troll incarnation (she did it more than once) she claimed to be in a wheelchair / very ill. When another forum member visited her at home it turned out to be a load of rubbish,

milkmilk she specialises in pretending to lead a very glamorous lifestyle / be super beautiful / have lots of pregnancy and health related dramas, so possibly. She actually lives in a flat in a northern city. She has a husband. God knows what he thinks.

laffy I'd honestly rather not say. She is a vindictive cow. I don't know what kind of shit she'd cause for me.

I posted a little bit on a baby forum, long before I discovered the wit & intelligence of MN It was the sort that people used their real names, had photos of their babies as avatars, lots of people got pretty friendly on Fb and so on.

They used to arrange secret santa and swap stuff/sell stuff (I didn't get involved - just saw the threads). Anyway, one time it totally blew up because someone put up a pushchair for sale, posted it to another (very prolific) poster - but never got paid for it. There were lots of people sticking up for her " she sent you a bank transfer last Tues" type posts - but afaik she never got the money for this pushchair.

This then escalated into someone outing her irl - and it turned out that an awful lot of "new baby" and secret santa presents supposedly sent by her had never arrived either. She done collections for people with sick babies, and the money had never materialised. And then came the links to other forums - she was doing this on about 4 other baby forums - getting involved in presents/collections etc - but scamming everyone.

It was quite eye-opening - and why I keep my on-line life completely separate to my real life.

No worries Tracy

Trolls do it for the attention, I saw that thread and my bullshit metre flew off the radar! Sad that so many people gave advice

Mnhq did apologise to Nobbly (the girl who appeared on OBEM), and admitted that due to a number of factors they had royally fucked up. Which was a disgraceful additional toll for that poor girl to have gone through at what was already such s traumatic time.

Mumsnet's rules are to report and move on (although so many people seem to think they're above having to adhere to those rules).

No one has to 'call troll' or drop hints, neither do they have to become emotionally invested in something if they think it will be toomuch for them to cope with, and especially not if they smell troll.

I don't really see what's so hard to understand re mnhq's stance on trolls and troll hunting.

I, fwiw, believe that it's better for ten trolls to frolic (hopefully increasingly ignored) around Mumsnet until they are repeatedly reported and removed, than for one person having to go through what poor Nobbly did, the name calling, discussion over her clinical details , armchair fucking doctors picking over her story and photos, at what was probably the worst time of her life.

Oh, and agree with toads on the other thread, maybe the prolific troll detectives should keep their brilliant sleuthing to themselves (and mnhq reporting obviously), especially when oftentimes, those trolldars appear to be so shit.

I do agree with report & move on, but some threads get loads of reports & HQ can take ages to do anything about it.

The latest troll that posted a grief thread posted on a Sunday & nothing was done for some time so I can see why people get so frustrated.

To be honest once a thread has been deleted and MNHQ have officially called troll I don't see why we shouldn't be allowed to discuss things openly.

Absolutely. I know that TAATs are a Bad Thing, but these troll threads can stir up emotions, and are an issue, so we should be able to discuss them in a reasonable way.

MN is ours in many ways, whoever we are, and however we contribute to it or benefit from it. If we can't discuss these things that affect us - sometimes very deeply - what does that say?

I hope this thread stays, there's been thought-provoking comment, including those from people who have trolled to some extent, which I doubt can have been easy for them to share. (I'm absolutely not a troll-apologist, but I am interested in people's experiences.)

I am really shocked at the number of people on this thread who have openly admitted to trolling and lying for attention themselves. Staggered, actually.

If there are this many on one thread I dread to think how many there are out there on the interweb. I know MN is full of drama llamas and emotional vampires but maybe there are far more than any of us realise.

I don't think that's true Maryz, I think mumsnet hq are saving their compassion for the people who are truly seeking help, rather than not caring about people who are drawn in.

They (mnhq) continually remind us to not give more of themselves than they can afford - in that alone I think they are showing a duty of care (probably the wrong expression) for posters and lurkers, while reminding them that they can control what they do or don't get involved in.

Also, if more people who call troll on thread or drop not so subtle hints, who believe that they can spot a troll a mile away, used that energy to report then hide, mnhq might get the chance to do what they try to, quietly investigate, delete and ban, or not, if information that they discover leads them to believe that the poster is genuine.

I was honestly left a bit gobsmacked when I read the TAAT re nobbly and just what that may have done to her - not only the thread deletion, but the character assassination which followed before mnhq apologised.

Apologies, btw, if my posts are literally hours apart, not only am I in oz, but I'm also in hospital with the worst intermittent jeffing mobile service known to man.

With the emotionally charged, vampiric grief related troll type threads I think MNHQ should jump on it at the FIRST report, hide it whilst they investigate and then if it is real just reinstate with a message that they have checked the credentials of the poster, if it isn't then it is deleted before too much damage has been done. Allowing these type of threads to stay active for hours, and in some cases days, is appalling in my opinion and causes untold damage to others and if you need proof of that read MrsDeVere's thread.

Troll hunting hurts one person if they are not a troll, trolling on deeply distressing subjects hurts many, many people - those who post and those who lurk the balance is wrong. The policy needs to be looked at again and a better balance struck.